Jobs for youth, OECD

This OECD paper on youth employment offers an objective critique of recent government initiatives and policy.

Key points:
- Measures of youth labour market performance and indicators describing the transition from education to work over the past 15 years paint a mixed picture. On the one hand, there is evidence that youth labour market integration and career progression have improved considerably since the mid-1990s, however, other indicators paint a less rosy picture.
- In 2007, the youth unemployment rate was 14%, slightly above the OECD average, compared with just 11% in 2004. These figures hide significant differences between teenagers (16-19-year olds) and young adults (20-24-year olds).
- 13% of 16-24-year olds were neither in employment nor in education or training (NEET) in 2005 (the latest year for which comparable data are available), and many youth in this group are at high risk of poor labour market outcomes and social exclusion. This rate is just above the OECD average of 12% and has increased slightly over the past decade.
- The New Deal for Young People – has helped many youth return to work, sustainable employment outcomes have proved difficult to achieve and there are signs that the programme is no longer as effective as in the early days.
- In terms of the education system, the priority is to reduce early leaving from education and training.
- Provision of free early childhood education, which helps reduce early leaving from education and training particularly when interventions are sustained beyond the pre-school period, is lower in England than in many OECD countries.
- Raising the age of compulsory participation in education and training to 18 by 2015 has the potential to ensure that youth enter the labour market better prepared for work. However, the part-time learning participation option may bring in its wake some enforcement problems when job separation occurs.

The report provides a good, objective, introduction to recent policy in this area and the current planned changes to the 14-19 agenda.